they have recourse, as unto the oracle of life, the great determinator of virginity, conception, fertility, and the inserutable infirmities of the whole body. For, as though there were a seminality in urine, or that, like the seed, it carried with it the idea of every part, they foolishly conceive, we visibly behold therein the anatomy of every particle, and can thereby indigitate their diseases: and, running into any demands, expect from us a sudden resolution in things, whereon the Devil of Delphos5 would demur: and we know hath taken respite of some days to answer easier questions. Saltimbancoes, quacksalvers, and charlatans, deceive them in lower degrees. Were Esop alive, the Piazza and Pont-Neuf* could not but speak their fallacies.8 Meanwhile there are too many whose cries cannot conceal their mischiefs: for their impostures are full of cruelty, and worse than any other; deluding not only unto pecuniary defraudations, but the irreparable deceit of death.

6

7

Astrologers, which pretend to be of Cabala with the stars? (such I mean as abuse that worthy enquiry) have not been wanting in their deceptions: who, having won their belief unto principles, whereof they make great doubt themselves, have made them believe, that arbitrary events below, have necessary causes above. Whereupon their credulities assent unto any prognosticks, and daily swallow the predictions of men; which, considering the independency of their causes,

* Places in Venice and Paris, where mountebanks play their pranks. the precious stones of Aaron's breastplate were the Urim and Thummim, and that they discovered the will of God by their extraordinary lustre, thereby predicting the issue of events to those who consulted them.

For as though there were a seminality in urine.] See Primrose's Vulgar Errors, translated by Wittie, p. 64.-J. Cr.

5 the Devil of Delphos.] Meaning the oracle of Apollo, at Delphos. 6 Saltimbancoes.] Mountebanks: saltare in banco.

7 quacksalvers.] ́Originally those who made, sold, or applied ointments or oils; salve-quacks. Applied to travelling quacks or charlatans. 8 Were Esop alive, the Piazza and Pont Neuf, &c.] Alluding probably to Esop's fable of the "Astrologer and Traveller," and meaning to intimate that the Piazza and Pont Neuf would have suggested to the fabulist abundant materials for fresh apologues.

9 of Cabala with the stars.] "Possessed of the key to their secrets.” Cabbala, a Hebrew word signifying tradition; applied originally to the secret science of the rabbinical doctors, and thence used to designate any secret science.

and contingency in their events, are only in the prescience of God.

Fortune-tellers, jugglers, geomancers,1 and the like incantatory impostors, though commonly men of inferior rank, and from whom, without illumination, they can expect no more than from themselves, do daily and professedly delude them. Unto whom (what is deplorable in men and Christians) too many applying themselves, betwixt jest and earnest, betray the cause of truth, and insensibly make up the legionary body of error.

Statists and politicians, unto whom ragione di stato is the first considerable,2 as though it were their business to deceive the people, as a maxim do hold, that truth is to be concealed from them; unto whom although they reveal the visible design, yet do they commonly conceal the capital intention. And therefore have they3 ever been the instruments of great designs, yet seldom understood the true intention of any; accomplishing the drifts of wiser heads, as inanimate and ignorant agents the general design of the world, who, though in some latitude of sense, and in a natural cognition [they] perform their proper actions, yet do they unknowingly concur unto higher ends, and blindly advance the great intention of nature. Now how far they may be kept in ignorance, a great example there is in the people of Rome, who never knew the true and proper name of their own city. For, beside that common appellation received by the citizens, it had a proper and secret name concealed from them; cujus alterum nomen1 dicere secretis ceremoniarum nefas habetur, saith Pliny. Lest the name thereof being discovered unto their enemies, their penates and patronal god might be called forth by charms and incantations. For, according unto the tradition of magicians, the tutelary spirits will not remove at common appellations, but at the proper names of things whereunto they are protectors.

1 geomancers.] A geomancer is a caster of figures: a cheat, who pretends to foretell futurity by other means than the astrologer.-Johnson. unto whom ragione di stato, &c.] To whom reasons of state are of the first consideration.

2

3 have they.] The vulgar have.—Wr.

4 secret name concealed from them, &c.—This name was Valentias, for revealing which Soranus was put to deathe.-Wr.

Thus, having been deceived by themselves, and continually deluded by others, they must needs be stuffed with errors, and even overrun with these inferior falsities. Whereunto whosoever shall resign their reasons, either from the root of deceit in themselves, or inability to resist such trivial deceptions from others, although their condition and fortunes may place them many spheres above the multitude, yet are they still within the line of vulgarity, and democratical enemies of truth.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the more immediate causes of Common Errors, both in the wiser and common sort; and first, of Misapprehension and Fallacy, or false Deduction.

THE first is a mistake, or a misconception of things, either in their first apprehension, or secondary relations. So Eve mistook the commandment, either from the immediate injunction of God, or from the secondary narration of her husband. So might the disciples mistake our Saviour, in his answer unto Peter concerning the death of John, as is delivered John xxi. "Peter seeing John, saith unto Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that unto thee? Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." Thus began the conceit and opinion of the Centaurs; that is, in the mistake of the first beholders, as is declared by Servius. When some young

5 deceptions.] The first five editions read ingannations.

6 In the mistake, &c.] A mistake similar to that which is recorded by Herrera, the Spanish historian of America, to have been committed by the people of New Spain, when they first beheld the Spanish cavalry. They imagined the horse and his rider to be some monstrous animal of a terrible form, and supposing that their food was the same as that of men, brought flesh and bread to nourish them. No representation, however, of horsemen occurs, which might indicate that the artist regarded the horse and his rider as one animal, among the various specimens of Mexican picture-writing, which have been published by Purchas, Thevenot, Robertson, Humboldt, and others.-Br.

Ross says, "there is no doubt then but Centaurs, as well as other monsters, are produced, partly by the influence of the stars, and partly by other causes," &c.

Thessalians on horseback were beheld afar off, while their horses watered, that is, while their heads were depressed, they were conceived by the first spectators to be but one animal; and answerable hereunto have their pictures been drawn ever since.

And, as simple mistakes commonly beget fallacies, so men rest not in false apprehensions, without absurd and inconsequent deductions; from fallacious foundations, and misapprehended mediums, erecting conclusions no way inferrible from their premises. Now the fallacies whereby men deceive others, and are deceived themselves, the ancients have divided into verbal and real. Of the verbal, and such as conclude from mistakes of the word, although there be no less than six, yet are there but two thereof worthy our notation, and unto which the rest may be referred; that is, the fallacy of equivocation and amphibology, which conclude from the ambiguity of some one word, or the ambiguous syntaxis of many put together. From this fallacy arose that calami tous error of the Jews, misapprehending the prophecies of their Messias, and expounding them always unto literal and temporal expectations. By this way many errors crept in, and perverted the doctrine of Pythagoras, whilst men received his precepts in a different sense from his intention; converting metaphors into proprieties, and receiving as literal expressions obscure and involved truths. Thus when he enjoined his disciples an abstinence from beans, many conceived they were with severity debarred the use of that pulse, which, notwithstanding, could not be his meaning; for as Aristoxenus, who wrote his life, averreth, he delighted much in that kind of food himself. But herein, as Plutarch observeth, he had no other intention than to dissuade men from magistracy, or undertaking the publick offices of state: for by beans was the magistrate elected in some parts of Greece; and after his days, we read, in Thucydides, of the Council of the Bean in Athens. The same word also in Greek doth signify a testicle, and hath been thought by some, an injunction only of continency, as Aulus Gellius

7 converting metaphors into proprieties.] "Taking an expression or representation which only by simile applies to a subject, as if it had properly (or of propriety) belonged to it." Proprieties here implies literalities.

hath expounded, and as Empedocles may also be interpreted, that is, testiculis miseri dextras subducite. And [this] might be the original intention of Pythagoras, as having a notable hint hereof in beans,8 from the natural signature of the venereal organs of both sexes. Again, his injunction is, not to harbour swallows in our houses; whose advice notwithstanding we do not contemn, who daily admit and cherish them. For herein a caution is only implied, not to entertain ungrateful and thankless persons, which like the swallow, are no way commodious unto us, but having made use of our habitations, and served their own turns, forsake us. So he commands to deface the print of a cauldron in the ashes, after it hath boiled; which strictly to observe, were condemnable superstition. But hereby he covertly adviseth us not to persevere in anger, but after our choler hath boiled, to retain no impression thereof. In the like sense are to be received, when he adviseth his disciples to give the right hand but to few, to put no viands in a chamber-pot, not to pass over a balance, not to take up fire with a sword, or piss against the sun. Which ænigmatical deliveries comprehend useful verities, but being mistaken by literal expositors at the first, they have been misunderstood by most since, and may be occasion of error to verbal capacities for ever.

This fallacy is the first delusion Satan put upon Eve, and his whole tentation might be the same continued. So when he said, "Ye shall not die," that was, in his equivocation, "ye shall not incur a present death," or a destruction immediately ensuing your transgression; "Your eyes shall be opened," that is, not to the enlargement of your knowledge, but discovery of your shame and proper confusion; "Ye shall know good and evil," that is, ye shall have knowledge of good by its privation, but cognizance of evil by sense and

8

* πᾶν δεῖλοι κυαμῶν ἀπὸ χεῖρας ἔχεσθε.

as having, &c.] See a curious paper on the ancient superstitions concerning beans and peas, in the Working Bee, iii. p. 11.—J.

9 the same continued.] The early editions read, "the same elench continued." Dean Wren remarks that elench is wrongly used here; meaning rather the detection of a sophistry than the sophistry itself. The author seems himself to have seen the error, and omitted the word.